don t make me think a common sense approach to web usability phần 7 pot

t h e h om e pag e i s b e yo n d yo u r co n t ro l WHAT’S THE POINT OF THIS SITE? eTour was10 a very interesting and (to me, at least) useful site with a simple concept: Tell them what your interests are (by checking off categories like Travel, Genealogy, or Web Design) and they’d whisk you to another hand-picked, highquality site that matched those interests each time you clicked on their "Next Site" button It was effortless, rewarding Web surfing—all wheat, no chaff I used to take eTour out for a spin every few weeks just to get a fresh sampling of what was new out there I think they did a very good job conveying the point of the site by reducing their story to three short phrases and numbering them 1-2-3 to suggest that using the site is a simple process Their tagline ("Surf the Web Without Searching") was less successful because it forced me to think about whether searching is really what makes Web surfing difficult But as taglines go it’s not bad Each click on eTour’s "Next Site" button opens another site 10 Of course, eTour was luckier than most sites Since they didn’t have a content hierarchy that they have to make visible, all the Home page had to was convey the concept and the value proposition But even so, they did a better job than other similar sites because they stuck to the main point and resisted the temptation to tout any of the site’s other features Like any good carnival barker, they understood that the only thing that counts is getting people inside the tent eTour fell victim to Web crash in 2001, shortly after I wrote this, so I’ve changed it to the past tense [ 115 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved c h a pt e r DO YOU KNOW WHERE TO START? Most of the people I’ve shown eTour to were tempted to click on the numbers (1,2,3) or the three graphics first But when that didn’t work (they’re not clickable), everyone clicked on the big "Let’s Go!" button at the bottom of the page almost immediately The Big Button works well for first-time visitors In fact, the only problem is that it’s so big (and "Let’s Go!" is so generic) that I clicked on it on my second visit, too, when what I should have clicked was the understated "Members Enter Here" button to its left In fact, since a week or two elapsed between my subsequent visits, I clicked "Let’s Go!" on my third visit, too And my fourth MY VERSION The only changes I would make would be the starting points I’d make it clear that the Big Button is for new users, and I’d give registered users a clear place to sign in right on the Home page MY VERSION #2 I always assumed that the three graphics illustrated the three steps described by the text But when I started looking at the page carefully, I realized that they don’t—they just show sample sites from three categories So I mocked up a version where the graphics actually did tell the story And I was surprised to find that while it conveyed more information, [ 116 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved t h e h om e pag e i s b e yo n d yo u r co n t ro l it wasn’t an improvement In fact, overall it just made the concept seem more complicated The moral? Things on a Web page don’t always have to make literal sense to be effective, as long as they seem to make sense MY VERSION #3 I also tried another version where I took out the numbers (1, 2, 3), to eliminate the temptation to click on them But I only succeeded in proving that the page works better with them They seem to work as a sort of visual and conceptual "glue" that helps the user make sense out of the page The fact that users may try to click on them is a small price to pay if the numbers make the concept clear THEIR REDESIGN After I first wrote this chapter, eTour redesigned their Home page As is often the case with redesigns, they took a few steps forward… > They created clear entry points for new and returning users by giving the Big Button a more self-explanatory name ("Sign Up") and adding a sign-in box for registered users > They improved the tagline ("Your Personal Web Tour Guide") and added what amounts to another tagline ("Discover Sites You’ll Like, One Click at a Time") .and a few steps back > They combined the sign-in box with a Animated GIF pulldown menu, giving users one more thing to think about with very little payo◊ > They replaced the "1-2-3" graphics and text with an animated GIF and a block of text that’s too long for anyone to bother reading [ 117 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved c h a pt e r WHAT’S THE POINT OF THIS SITE? Productopia was10 an excellent site, but you might not know it from its Home page The problem is a flaw in the visual hierarchy Because the tagline ("The Source for Product Info and Advice") is tucked inside the Yahoo-style directory panel, it comes across as a description of the category list instead of the whole site And since the tagline is bland and lacking any detail, it fails to differentiate Productopia from all the other product advice sites and ends up sounding like every other inflated Internet claim At first glance, the only message I get is that the site has something to with product advice The sophisticated graphic style and the products pictured on the left strongly suggest that we’re talking about stylish, expensive products—designer furniture, not Chia Pets I suspect that it’s a site where I could find either user reviews or reviews written by Productopia for specific products In reality, the site is much more powerful It o◊ers advice on finding the best product in a category in a given price range, with actual useful advice on what makes a product good in a given category For instance, when I clicked on what I thought was a promo for a Dualit Slice toaster, I was shocked to find myself on a page filled with useful, thoughtful, well-written information about choosing a toaster.(There was a prominent link to the Dualit, but it was only one of nine featured toasters in three categories: Quality, Style, and Value.) Overall, the Home page message gave me very little hint of what I’d find inside It’s unclear whether the area on the left is three promos for today’s featured products or a very abstract Welcome blurb.(The text, "top form /shapely showoffs smack of luxe" doesn’t help much.) 10 Productopia met the same fate as eTour [ 118 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved t h e h om e pag e i s b e yo n d yo u r co n t ro l The actual Welcome blurb statement ("Our experts provide you with the information you need…") is underneath the promos, and it needs to come before them And, as usual, it’s too long I have to work hard to find the crucial information: editors select products without any influence from manufacturers or advertisers DO YOU KNOW WHERE TO START? There are three clear starting points on the page: > Type something in the prominent search box > Click on one of the categories in the Yahoo-style directory > Click on one of the three featured products (if that’s what they are) The only problem is, if I’m unclear on what the site is, how I decide what to search for or what category to choose? A successful Home page has to tell me what the site is and show me where to start [ 119 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved c h a pt e r THEIR REVISED VERSION While I was writing this chapter, Productopia redesigned their Home page, improving it substantially They eliminated the stray tagline on the right, and put a much better tagline ("We Help You Find the Products You’ll Love") at the top of the area on the left Licensed by Douglas Bolin 1969813 And they shortened the crucial explanation ("Our experts offer unbiased advice to help you choose the product that’s right for you") so that it now stands a chance of being read But it’s still buried at the bottom of what still looks like the featured products section And they moved the Utility links (Editorial Policy, User Reviews, and so on) into a new area at the bottom of the page, but they lumped them together with promos like "Women’s Spring Fashion" and "Do You Cook?" It took me a while to figure out that the two columns were different [ 120 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved t h e h om e pag e i s b e yo n d yo u r co n t ro l MY VERSION I’d start by moving the tagline to the top of the page with the Site ID, making it clear that it’s a descriptor for the entire site I’d also move the Welcome blurb above the promos, and make it more prominent I’d separate the Utility links and the promos at the bottom of the page, grouping the promos with the "featured products" above them on the left side And I’d reformat the awards icons Unlike most Web awards, these four are actually meaningful.(The Digital Time award puts Productopia on a short list of e-commerce sites with Amazon and eBay.) But lining them up across the bottom of the page makes them look like they’re "Bob’s Cool Site of the Day" icons This is a case where you want to be sure you don’t follow a convention [ 121 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved 6789 c h a pt e r “The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends” why most web design team arguments about usability are a waste of time, and how to avoid them Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved One man likes to push a plough The other likes to chase a cow But that’s no reason why they can't be friends — oklahoma! , oscar hammerstein ii L eft to their own devices, web development teams aren’t notoriously successful at making decisions about usability questions Most teams end up spending a lot of precious time rehashing the same issues over and over Consider this scene: WEB DESIGN FUNNIES Today’s episode: “Religious Debates” featuring… Rick from Marketing Kim the Project Manager We could use a pulldown menu for the product list Bob the Developer I hate pulldowns Caroline makes a suggestion… Caroline the Designer Well, I don’t think most people mind them And they’d save us a lot of space People don’t like pulldowns My father won’t even go near a site if it uses pulldowns Besides, have you got a better idea? continued… [ 123 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved c h a pt e r …but Bob plays his developer’s trump card Do we know if there’s any research data on pulldowns? I think there might be a problem using pulldowns on the ASP pages from our remote servers Rick attempts an appeal to a higher authority… So, what does everybody think? Should we try using pulldowns? I hate my life Two weeks later… Did we ever make a decision about pulldowns? I usually call these endless discussions “religious debates,” because they have a lot in common with most discussions of religion and politics: They consist largely of people expressing strongly held personal beliefs about things that can’t be proven—supposedly in the interest of agreeing on the best way to something [ 124 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved t h e fa r m e r a n d t h e cow m a n important (whether it’s attaining eternal peace, governing effectively, or just designing Web pages) And, like most religious debates, they rarely result in anyone involved changing his or her point of view Besides wasting time, these arguments create tension and erode respect among team members, and can often prevent the team from making critical decisions Unfortunately, there are several forces at work in most Web teams that make these debates almost inevitable In this chapter, I’ll describe these forces, and explain what I think is the best antidote “Everybody likes .” All of us who work on Web sites have one thing in common—we’re also Web users And like all Web users, we tend to have strong feelings about what we like and don’t like about Web sites As individuals, we love Flash animations because they’re cool; or we hate them because they take a long time to download We love menus down the left side of each page because they’re familiar and easy to use, or we hate them because they’re so boring We really enjoy using sites with , or we find to be a royal pain And when we’re working on a Web team, it turns out to be very hard to check those feelings at the door The result is usually a room full of individuals with strong personal convictions about what makes for a good Web site And given the strength of these convictions—and human nature—there’s a natural tendency to project these likes and dislikes onto Web users in general: to think that most Web users like the same things we like We tend to think that most Web users are like us He’s right They stink What’s so bad about them? I like pulldowns What’s his problem? People don’t like pulldowns [ 125 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved c h a pt e r It’s not that we think that everyone is like us We know there are some people out there who hate the things we love—after all, there are even some of them on our own Web team But not sensible people And there aren’t many of them Farmers vs cowmen On top of this layer of personal passion, there’s another layer: professional passion Like the farmers and the cowmen in Oklahoma!, the players on a Web team have very different perspectives on what constitutes good Web design based on what they for a living.1 PIZZAZZ! The ideal Web page as seen by someone whose job is… CEO Developer Designer Business development Take designers and developers, for instance Designers tend to think that most people like sites that are visually interesting because they like sites that are visually interesting In fact, they probably became designers because they enjoy good design; they find that it makes things more interesting and easier to understand.2 Developers, on the other hand, tend to think people like sites with lots of cool features because they like sites with lots of cool features The result is that designers want to build sites that look great, and developers want to build sites with interesting, original, elegant features I’m not sure who’s the farmer and who’s the cowman in this picture, but I know that their differences in perspective often lead to conflict—and hard feelings—when it comes time to establish design priorities In the play, the thrifty, God-fearing, family-oriented farmers are always at odds with the freewheeling, loose-living cowmen Farmers love fences, cowmen love the open range Yes, I’m dealing in stereotypes here But I think they’re useful stereotypes [ 126 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved t h e fa r m e r a n d t h e cow m a n At the same time, designers and programmers find themselves siding together in another, larger clash between what Art Kleiner describes as the cultures of hype and craft.3 While the hype culture (upper management, marketing, and business development) is focused on making whatever promises are necessary to attract venture capital, users, strategic partners, and revenue-generating deals to the site, the burden of delivering on those promises lands on the shoulders of the craft culture artisans like the designers and programmers This Internet version of the perennial struggle between art and commerce (or perhaps farmers and cowmen vs the railroad barons) adds another level of complexity to any discussions of usability issues—often in the form of apparently arbitrary edicts handed down from the hype side of the fence.4 The CEO likes the site, but he wants everything to be twice as large as it is… …in time for the trade show next week See “Corporate Culture in Internet Time” in strategy+business magazine (www.strategy-business.com/press/article/10374, free registration required) I once saw a particularly puzzling feature on the Home page of a prominent—and otherwise sensibly designed—site When I asked about it, I was told, “Oh, that It came to our CEO in a dream, so we had to add it.” True story [ 127 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved c h a pt e r The myth of the Average User The belief that most Web users are like us is enough to produce gridlock in the average Web design meeting But behind that belief lies another one, even more insidious: the belief that most Web users are like anything As soon as the clash of personal and professional opinions results in a stalemate, the conversation usually turns to finding some way (whether it’s an expert opinion, research, focus groups, or user tests) to determine what most users like or don’t like—to figure out what the Average Web User is really like The only problem is, there is no Average User In fact, all of the time I’ve spent watching people use the Web has led me to the opposite conclusion: all Web users are unique, and all Web use is basically idiosyncratic The more you watch users carefully and listen to them articulate their intentions, motivations, and thought processes, the more you realize that their individual reactions to Web pages are based on so many variables that attempts to describe users in terms of one-dimensional likes and dislikes are futile and counterproductive Good design, on the other hand, takes this complexity into account And the worst thing about the myth of the Average User is that it reinforces the idea that good Web design is largely a matter of figuring out what people like It’s an attractive notion: either pulldowns are good (because most people like them), or they’re bad (because most people don’t) You should have links to everything in the site on the Home page, or you shouldn’t Menus on the top work better than menus down the side Frames, pages that scroll, etc are either good or bad, black or white The problem is there are no simple “right” answers for most Web design questions (at least not for the important ones) What works is good, integrated design that fills a need—carefully thought out, well executed, and tested Take the use of Flash, for example.5 If asked, some percent of users will say they really like Flash, and an equal percent will probably say they hate it But what Flash, Macromedia’s tool for creating animated and interactive user interfaces, not flash (lowercase), the arbitrary use of whiz-bang features to make a site more interesting [ 128 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved t h e fa r m e r a n d t h e cow m a n they really hate is Flash used badly: large, complicated animations that take a long time to download and don’t add any value If you observe them carefully and ask the right questions, you’ll likely find that these same people will appreciate sites that use small, hardworking, well-thought-out bits of Flash to add a pleasant bit of sizzle or useful functionality without getting in the way That’s not to say that there aren’t some things you should never do, and some things you should rarely There are some ways to design Web pages that are clearly wrong It’s just that they aren’t the things that Web teams usually argue about The antidote for religious debates The point is, it’s not productive to ask questions like “Do most people like pulldown menus?” The right kind of question to ask is “Does this pulldown, with these items and this wording in this context on this page create a good experience for most people who are likely to use this site?” And there’s really only one way to answer that kind of question: testing You have to use the collective skill, experience, creativity, and common sense of the team to build some version of the thing (even a crude version), then watch ordinary people carefully as they try to figure out what it is and how to use it There’s no substitute for it Where debates about what people like waste time and drain the team’s energy, testing tends to defuse arguments and break impasses by moving the discussion away from the realm of what’s right or wrong and into the realm of what works or doesn’t work And by opening our eyes to just how varied users’ motivations, perceptions, and responses are, testing makes it hard to keep thinking that all users are like us Can you tell that I think testing is a good thing? The next chapter explains how to test your own site [ 129 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved 789 c h a pt e r Usability testing Licenseda day by on 10 cents Douglas Bolin 1969813 keeping testing simple—so you enough of it Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved Why didn’t we this sooner? —what everyone says at some point during the first usability test of their web site A bout once a month, I get one of these phone calls: Ed Grimley at XYZ Corp gave me your name …two weeks? We’re launching our site in two weeks and we want to some usability testing As soon as I hear “launching in two weeks” (or even “two months”) and “usability testing” in the same sentence, I start to get that old fireman-headed-into-theburning-chemical-factory feeling, because I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on If it’s two weeks, then it’s almost certainly a request for a disaster check The launch is fast approaching and everyone’s getting nervous, and someone finally says, “Maybe we better some usability testing.” If it’s two months, then odds are that what they want is to settle some ongoing internal debates—usually about something very specific like color schemes Opinion around the office is split between two different designs; some people like the sexy one, some like the elegant one Finally someone with enough clout to authorize the expense gets tired of the arguing and says, “All right, let’s get some testing done to settle this.” [ 131 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved c h a pt e r And while usability testing will sometimes settle these arguments, the main thing it usually ends up doing is revealing that the things they were arguing about aren’t all that important People often test to decide which color drapes are best, only to learn that they forgot to put windows in the room For instance, they might discover that it doesn’t make much difference whether you go with the horizontal navigation bar or the vertical menus if nobody understands the value proposition of your site Sadly, this is how most usability testing gets done: too little, too late, and for all the wrong reasons Repeat after me: Focus groups are not usability tests Sometimes that initial phone call is even scarier: …we’re launching our site in two weeks and we want to some focus group testing Focus group testing? When the last-minute request is for a focus group, it’s usually a sign that the request originated in Marketing When Web sites are being designed, the folks in Marketing often feel like they don’t have much clout Even though they’re the ones who spend the most time trying to figure out who the site’s audience is and what they want, the designers and developers are the ones with most of the hands-on control over how the site actually gets put together [ 132 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved u s a b i l i t y t e s t i n g o n c e n t s a day As the launch date approaches, the Marketing people may feel that their only hope of sanity prevailing is to appeal to a higher authority: research And the kind of research they know is focus groups I often have to work very hard to make clients understand that what they need is usability testing, not focus groups Here’s the difference in a nutshell: > In a focus group, a small group of people (usually to 8) sit around a table and react to ideas and designs that are shown to them It’s a group process, and much of its value comes from participants reacting to each other’s opinions Focus groups are good for quickly getting a sampling of users’ opinions and feelings about things > In a usability test, one user at a time is shown something (whether it’s a Web site, a prototype of a site, or some sketches of individual pages) and asked to either (a) figure out what it is, or (b) try to use it to a typical task Focus groups can be great for determining what your audience wants, needs, and likes—in the abstract They’re good for testing whether the idea behind the site makes sense and your value proposition is attractive And they can be a good way to test the names you’re using for features of your site, and to find out how people feel about your competitors But they’re not good for learning about whether your site works and how to improve it The kinds of things you can learn from focus groups are the things you need to learn early on, before you begin designing the site Focus groups are for EARLY in the process You can even run them late in the process if you want to a reality check and fine-tune your message, but don’t mistake them for usability testing They won’t tell you whether people can actually use your site Several true things about testing Here are the main things I know about testing: > If you want a great site, you’ve got to test After you’ve worked on a site for even a few weeks, you can’t see it freshly anymore You know too much The only way to find out if it really works is to test it [ 133 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved c h a pt e r Testing reminds you that not everyone thinks the way you do, knows what you know, uses the Web the way you I used to say that the best way to think about testing was that it was like travel: a broadening experience It reminds you how different—and the same—people are, and gives you a fresh perspective on things But I finally realized that testing is really more like having friends visiting from out of town Inevitably, as you make the tourist rounds with them, you see things about your home town that you usually don’t notice because you’re so used to them And at the same time, you realize that a lot of things that you take for granted aren’t obvious to everybody > Testing one user is 100 percent better than testing none Testing always works, and even the worst test with the wrong user will show you important things you can to improve your site I make a point of always doing a live user test at my workshops so that people can see that it’s very easy to and it always produces an abundance of valuable insights I ask for a volunteer and have him try to perform a task on a site belonging to one of the other attendees These tests last less than ten minutes, but the person whose site is being tested usually scribbbles several pages of notes And they always ask if they can have the recording of the test to show to their team back home (One person told me that after his team saw the recording, they made one change to their site which they later calculated had resulted in $100,000 in savings.) > Testing one user early in the project is better than testing 50 near the end Most people assume that testing needs to be a big deal But if you make it into a big deal, you won’t it early enough or often enough to get the most out of it A simple test early—while you still have time to use what you learn from it—is almost always more valuable than a sophisticated test later Part of the conventional wisdom about Web development is that it’s very easy to go in and make changes The truth is, it turns out that it’s not that easy to make changes to a site once it’s in use Some percentage of users will resist almost any kind of change, and even apparently simple changes often turn out to have far-reaching effects, so anything you can keep from building wrong in the first place is gravy [ 134 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved u s a b i l i t y t e s t i n g o n c e n t s a day > The importance of recruiting representative users is overrated It’s good to your testing with people who are like the people who will use your site, but it’s much more important to test early and often My motto—as you’ll see— is “Recruit loosely, and grade on a curve.” > The point of testing is not to prove or disprove something It’s to inform your judgment People like to think, for instance, that they can use testing to prove whether navigation system “a” is better than navigation system “b”, but you can’t No one has the resources to set up the kind of controlled experiment you’d need What testing can is provide you with invaluable input which, taken together with your experience, professional judgment, and common sense, will make it easier for you to choose wisely—and with greater confidence—between “a” and “b.” > Testing is an iterative process Testing isn’t something you once You make something, test it, fix it, and test it again > Nothing beats a live audience reaction One reason why the Marx Brothers’ movies are so wonderful is that before they started filming they would go on tour on the vaudeville circuit and perform scenes from the movie, doing five shows a day, improvising constantly and noting which lines got the best laughs Even Mrs Teasdale (Margaret after they’d settled on a line, Groucho Dumont) and Rufus T Firefly would insist on trying slight variations to eavesdrop in Duck Soup see if it could be improved Lost our lease, going-out-of-businesssale usability testing Usability testing has been around for a long time, and the basic idea is pretty simple: If you want to know whether your software or your Web site or your VCR remote control is easy enough to use, watch some people while they try to use it and note where they run into trouble Then fix it, and test it again In the beginning, though, usability testing was a very expensive proposition You had to have a usability lab with an observation room behind a one-way mirror, and at least two video cameras so you could record the users’ reactions and the thing they were using You had to recruit a lot of people so you could get results [ 135 ] Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared for dougbolin@mac.com, Douglas Bolin © 2006 Steve Krug This download file is made available for personal use only and is subject to the Safari Terms of Service Any other use requires prior written consent from the copyright owner Unauthorized use, reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited and violate applicable laws All rights reserved  ... usability are a waste of time, and how to avoid them Don? ? ?t Make Me Think! : A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don? ? ?t Make Me Think! : A Common Sense Approach to Web U Prepared... “Oh, that It came to our CEO in a dream, so we had to add it.” True story [ 1 27 ] Don? ? ?t Make Me Think! : A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don? ? ?t Make Me Think! : A Common Sense. .. tell me what the site is and show me where to start [ 119 ] Don? ? ?t Make Me Think! : A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition Don? ? ?t Make Me Think! : A Common Sense Approach to Web